NCAA Basketball Betting: Duke Blue Devils season totals

Monday, January 30, 2012 9:04 AM ET

Sportsbook odds makers had listed the Duke Blue Devils' conference win totals at 13 for this season. Lets see how Coach K and the boys are doing so far, and with ten games left in their season, can they still go 'over'?

Don’t look
now, but we’re just a few weeks away from ‘March Madness’.

It doesn’t
seem like it was all that long ago that we were ‘talking turkey’ (Thanksgiving)
and preseason College Basketball tournaments (December). Now we’re at the halfway
point in most conference races and before you know it league tournaments and
the NCAA Tournament will be here.

Earlier this year Caesars Palace became the first
land based sportsbook to offer college basketball wagering on conference win
totals for 24 teams. This hopefully will mark the beginning of a new form of
wagering for diehard college basketball fans. The major sports; NFL, college
football, NBA and MLB already have betting on entire season win totals and
hopefully our favorite offshore establishments will follow.

Win totals are usually reserved for college football
and have never been offered for college hoops. This year, due to popular
demand, totals were released for a handful of teams like Ohio State, North
Carolina and Syracuse.

Duke was also on the list, and earlier this season I provided a preview on where I thought this team would end up.

Over 13 (-110)
Under 13 (-120)

The Duke Blue Devils are currently 5-1 in conference play
and in a three-way tie with North Carolina and Florida State for first-place.
Duke will need to win nine of its remaining 10 regular season games to go
‘over’ the win total. They’ve got road games remaining at Virginia Tech, North
Carolina, Boston College, Florida State and Wake Forest.

Duke has five home games remaining against Miami,
Maryland, North Carolina State, Virginia Tech and North Carolina. Being a
betting man, I lament not taking the ‘under’ in ACC Conference play. I’ve got the Blue
Devils winning six of their remaining regular season conference games, which
would still leave them short of the magic total of 13.

According to the BYB web site, Ohio State had the
highest listed win total at 15. The Buckeyes will play an 18-game Big Ten
Conference schedule and are likely to be favored in 17 of their conference
games. By comparison, Michigan and Michigan State carry win totals of 12 and
11, respectively.

Nineteen of the 24 win totals released are reserved
for BCS Conference teams, but a handful of small-conference teams are also
represented, including BYU (12.5), Harvard (12.5), Memphis (13.5), UNLV (11.5)
and Xavier (13.5).

The win totals are limited only to conference games,
making it much easier for sports bettors to isolate the most meaningful games on a
team’s schedule and not have to worry about obscure non-conference matchups,
the varying schedules across the sport, and so on.

Duke is a
mortal lock for 20 wins a year and in most seasons they can be counted on to
win 25 victories. Last season, the Blue Devils finished 32-5 overall
and advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16, but this year are slightly off the 2010-2011
win total. What makes this form of NCAA Basketball betting attractive is that it eliminates the
‘cupcake’ factor. There’s no beating up on the little guys not with most
conferences tough from top to bottom.

The Blue
Devils (18-3 SU, 5-1 ACC) are on track for another big season. They’ve got 10 ACC
games remaining, followed by the conference tournament and the Big Dance. In
past years, the win total was something a bettor or fan would look at once the
season was over mostly for bragging rights. But now with the advent and
hopefully the expansion of conference betting, hopefully it will create
additional interest and profit for hoop fans who now have a new way to place their NCAA Basketball picks.